Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars Blu-ray Review

House of Five Treasures

In 1962, Toho Studios in Japan made Gorath, and end-of-the-world disaster epic to which Toho’s boss demanded the filmmakers include a giant monster; those sold tickets at the time. Lucky Stars feels similarly handicapped. Like the wonky giant walrus in Gorath, Lucky Stars randomly includes plot bites featuring Jackie Chan. Neither film feels cohesive.

Opening on images of Hiroshima and Vietnam, Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars pivots immediately – it’s a movie about none of those things. What it purports to be about, international crime and woman caught in the villain’s scheme, isn’t true either.

Lucky Stars isn’t about Chan; he’s a marketable afterthought

This is to no fault of Chan, who after suffering severe injury during Police Story, was limited in physical performance. Obvious stunt doubles (some in plain view during slow motion) barely maintain cohesion between edits, a rarity in this genre for Chan.

But again, Lucky Stars isn’t about Chan; he’s a marketable afterthought, the giant monster in this comparison. Instead, the focus sits on Sammo Hung and others, acting out a wacky, screwball comedy that today is frequently uncomfortable. Branded as buffoons, the team spends the movie trying to coerce women into kissing, touching, and even undressing for them. Their schemes grow ever more extreme, including setting a fire in their apartment so their female target douses herself with water. At its best, the whole thing is perversely crude, and at worst (most of Lucky Stars), it’s sexual assault.

There is talent on this creative team, gobs of it, really. Say what one will for Hong Kong’s culture gender equality at the time, lost in translation to time maybe, but America had Revenge of the Nerds, and this is the equivalent. Both appear gross and icky, and neither are worth revisiting.

Even an off-the-mark Jackie Chan/Sammo Hung offering is usually saved by the action. Lucky Stars has a few scenes of note, but by their standards, lack the ingenuity seen in their previous work. A car chase offers little worth seeing, the gunplay is played for uneven laughs, and the physical brawls fade far too quickly as this is not an action movie. There’s nothing wrong with a genre swap so much as the content the action is swapped with, and in this case, the comedy is discomforting.

Video

Astonishing clarity and sharpness introduce this transfer, and Shout’s encode is a winner. With the grain resolved, definition soars, the texture in the image truly spectacular, enough to suggest this comes from a true 4K scan. If not from the spotless camera negative, then something close enough to approximate it.

Equally splendid, color displays with a generous vibrancy. Plump flesh tones and saturated primaries dress Lucky Stars to an awesome degree.

As the final piece, bright, intense contrast drapes the scenery. Intensity looks natural, dodging any clipping, and creating a vivid visual space. Certainly, black levels do the same on their end, some of the richest seen so far in the usually flatter Jackie Chan Blu-ray library. While certain shots do push a dense blue rather than black, those moments are brief.

Audio

Four DTS-HD tracks include the default Cantonese mono, stereo Mandarin, English dub mono, and then an alternate Cantonese mono track. While not the firmest in fidelity, there’s enough clarity to give this Cantonese offering a pass – barely. The chipper score hits clean peaks, better than the rougher dialog that lacks the same consistency; that’s rougher and revealing its age.

Extras

An extended Taiwanese cut starts this bonus section, following by two actor interviews: Richard Ng and Richard Norton. Commentary comes from author David West. Outtakes then precede a slew of trailers and stills.

Full disclosure: This Blu-ray was provided to us for review. This has not affected the editorial process. For information on how we handle review material, please visit our about us page to learn more.

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 37 full resolution, uncompressed HD screen shots grabbed directly from the Blu-ray: